Indian summer monsoon precipitating clouds: role of microphysical process rates

The budget analysis of microphysical process rates based on Modern Era Retrospective-analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) products are presented in the study. The relative importance of different microphysical process rates, which is crucial for GCMs, is investigated. The autoconversion and accretion processes are found to be vital for Indian Summer Monsoon (ISM). The map-to-map correlations are examined between observed precipitation and MERRA reanalysis. The pattern correlations connote the fidelity of the MERRA datasets used here. Results of other microphysical parameters (e.g. ice water content from CloudSat, high cloud fraction from CALIPSO and MODIS, latent heating from TRMM, cloud ice mixing ratio from MERRA) are presented in this study. The tropospheric temperature from reanalysis product of MERRA and NCEP are also analyzed. Furthermore, the linkages between cloud microphysics production rates and dynamics, which are important for North–South tropospheric temperature gradient for maintaining the ISM circulation, are also discussed. The study demonstrates the microphysical process rates, which are actually responsible for the cloud hydrometeors and precipitation formation on the monsoon intraseasonal oscillations timescale. Cloud to rain water auto-conversion and snow accretion rates are the dominant processes followed by the rain accretion. All these tendency terms replicates the similar spatial patterns as that of precipitation. The quantification of microphysical process rates and precipitation over different regions are shown here. The freezing rate is also imperative for the formation of cloud ice as revealed by the observation. Freezing rates at upper level and snow accretion at middle level may have effect on latent heating release. Further it can modulate the north–south temperature gradient which can influence the large-scale monsoon dynamics. The rain water evaporation is also considered as a key aspect for controlling the low level moisture convergence (source of water vapor) in ISM. This study has highlighted the importance of detailed microphysical production rates for warm and mixed-phase cloud processes, which is a major source of uncertainty in the climate models. Better understanding of these processes will definitely add value to the present generation climate models. Therefore the hypothesis/pathway emerged from the present study may be helpful for the future model development research.